The Life and Times of Mr Death
by Kuuthana
Summary: Harry Potter didn't know what to expect when he died. The last thing he expected was to get an autobiography from Death himself.
1. 1- Pilot

Harry woke with a slow realization that he should be dead. The feeling of cold, hard stone against his back and the lack of pain gives him indication that maybe, possibly, he is still alive. The last thing he remembers is going to face Voldemort for the last time at the Battle for Hogwarts. He gets up to take a look around and only sees dense fog everywhere with visibility being a few meters in all directions. After pausing for what could be anywhere between one to ten minutes, Harry gets up and picks a random direction to walk off into.

He walks, and walks, and walks, and walks.

He does not know how long he has been walking for, but he does not stop.

And he continues to walk.

Eventually Harry walks into an area where his range of visibility expands and he spots a figure sitting down, hunched over, on a rock. The figure is dressed in a black, flowy robe with a hood worn which obscures their face. The figure looked every bit of the clichéd Death representation that he could imagine. For if Death ever appeared in front of him, this figure is what he would have imagined.

Harry approached the figure and when he was a few paces away from it the figure raised its head (well, if the slight movement of his hood was any indication) and seemed to look at him. The figure remained like that for a few moments before,

"Ah", was what Harry heard in a fairly raspy voice.

The figure then waved his arm in a dramatically slow fashion and slowly, but instantly at the same time, everywhere around them transformed from a weary, foggy, landscape to a weary, foggy, café. And there where the figure was sitting, there now was a simplistic wooden table, with wooden chairs, and glasses of water resting on the table.

The figure reached for a glass of water while removing his hood to reveal a decidedly male face with crow, unkempt, black hair and the appearance of a man in the prime of his life. But the feature that contrasted the most were the eyes he wore and how aged they looked. Incredibly green eyes that felt like they glowed in the dark.

Eyes just like Harry's. Minus the glowing part really.

The man took a long drink from the glass of water where the water did not seem to be decreasing at all, and what could only feel like eternity, placed the still filled glass back onto the table.

"Sorry about that, haven't had to greet someone in what feels like forever" the man said in a much less raspy voice and what more felt like an ethereal, aged voice now.

"Come, sit" he motions towards the other chair, and Harry could not help but notice the lack of scars on the back of his hands" "I'm sure you have questions."

Harry moved and seated himself in the chair and grabbed the glass the water for himself. He took a sip, then a drink, and then spilled some water onto himself when he realized the water level was not decreasing and he leveraged the cup too high.

Sputtering, Harry grabbed the towel that was not there before and began to dry himself off.

Quenched, and dry, Harry finally took another look at the man who looked like him, but was definitely not.

"Who, are you?" Harry slowly sends out.

The man's gaze seemed to glaze past Harry at that point and he opens his mouth, but no words come out, and he pauses for several moments.

He eventually returns to focus and closes his mouth before focusing back onto Harry.

"I guess you could call me Death."

No shit, Harry thought.

Harry takes a look around and notices that he cannot see the walls of this café, and in fact before he can see any walls only dense fog surrounds them.

"So I'm really dead then?"

Death only gives Harry an apologetic smile.

"I'm afraid so."

Feeling the weight of his words finally falling onto him, Harry crunches into himself and grabs onto his arms.

"But death doesn't really mean the same thing to us than everyone else."

Harry relaxes and slowly raises his head and looks at Death, eyes imploring him to continue.

"You can go back you know. You just have to choose."

And again Harry's gaze lowers from Death back onto the table and remains there for several moments.

"But what if I don't want to?" Harry quietly murmurs out.

"Then choose to move on, or don't. The choice is ultimately yours Harry."

Death's words linger in the air and Harry notices Death's gaze has moved to his far right and Harry follows it. Past the fog he sees his body in midst with a fight with Voldemort, instances before his death as a brightly coloured green spell is moments from hitting him. Harry shudders and quickly returns his gaze to Death only to notice that Death is now looking to his far left and looking over there he sees a woman with fiery red hair and green eyes smiling warmly at him while being hugged by a man with round glasses and brown hair. And they both smile at him with such lovingly care that Harry has to fight back his urge to run right at them right there.

"They wouldn't hate you, you know, for giving up and rejoining them. I can't say that they have always been looking over you, since the afterlife doesn't work like that, but you can rejoin them."

Harry tears his eyes away from his parents and looks at Death.

"Do I have to choose now?"

Death has a tender smile sprout from his face and he leans ever so slightly more forward so that Harry could hear more of what he is saying.

"Time doesn't work the way you would think here. We can choose when to appear and where to go and no one would be aware of our choices. If you chose to return you don't have to choose that moment, you can go back before you chose to face Voldemort, back to your fourth year and redo Hogwarts, you can even go to a different world where your parents are still alive."

The words froze Harry as he realized what Death was saying, but then the implications settled in.

"But they wouldn't be my parents would they?"

Death could only sadly smile and say

"Unfortunately no, your parents are over there" and Death points to his parents residing in the fog "But you could see what they could have been."

Death takes his teacup (and when did he do that?) and takes a quick sip before returning to Harry.

"And it would also mean leaving this world behind. For there are many, many different dimensions out there and being able to remember the minute differences enough to return to the exact same one is difficult even for me."

Harry glances between his left and right, seemingly weighing his choices.

And they wait.

Harry trying to figure out his best choices, while Death merely waits with the patience of someone doing it like he has been for the majority of his existence.

"Can you tell me a story?" Harry quietly asks, as the weight of the potential choices start breaking him.

Death's smile grows larger as he starts to rub his chin.

"A story you say?"

"Yeah, just something, anything really, to get my mind off this."

Death ponders a moment.

"How about a story about yourself?"

Death gives a wry chuckle.

"No, origin stories are such a bore and besides, spoilers would do you no good, Harry."

Harry could only furrow his eyebrows at that statement.

"Ah, yes. I know exactly the story I should start off with."

"Let me tell you about the sister you never had, or the girl you could have been."

"Let me tell you about the Girl-Who-Lived."


	2. 2 - The Girl Who Lived - Setup

The first time Iris Potter died was when she was one year old and Voldemort himself cast the killing curse on her. In other stories the Killing Curse rebounded due to ancient magic and backlashed onto Voldemort, but in this story Voldemort's spell killed Iris and an infant appeared in Death's domain.

It's not every day that an infant appears in Death's realm (most spirits just pass on to the afterlife) so the wailings of a baby pierced sharply through the realm.

Death descended onto the baby and could only marvel that someone so young could have made it here.

For the important thing that all people that made it to Death's realm ultimately had to do was choose. Choose to move on, or choose to return. But a baby could not choose and Death was faced with a dilemma. What should he do?

A baby has not lived life, so Death decided to send her back to where she came from.

And Iris Potter returned to the exact moment of her death, and in an act of correcting itself the universe "vanquished" Voldemort (as much as one could with horcruxes still around) and Iris lives another day, but with no signifying scar on her forehead.

The story continues as it usually would. Dumbledore arrives and rescues Iris, and he has suspicions that Voldemort is not truly dead, even though there is no horcrux in Iris' head, but he has his theories. The theory that is wrong however is the assumption that Lily's ancient blood magic is what protected Iris tonight and to make sure none of Voldemort's followers enact vengeance he has her placed with the Dursley's, Lily's last living relatives.

Iris is mistreated and abused by the Dursley's. She is raised without love, and the story goes on much like it has always been, and always will.

* * *

The second time Iris dies is at the end of first year in the confrontation with Quirrell.

She finds herself much like in the same position as Harry, but instead of getting up to explore her surroundings she opts to hunch over in a ball and weep.

And it is in this position that Death finds her once again and Iris looks up in tears in her eyes at a man that is in the prime of his life with unkempt black hair and eyes so vividly green and so aged that it feels like it is piercing her soul.

The same shade of green much like hers.

"Dad?" she asks.

Death gives her a somber smile and he waves his hand.

Slowly, but instantly, Iris finds herself in a comfy bed fit for a king and the landscape has changed from weary and foggy endless rocky roads to a bedroom she never had filled with dolls and plushies and furniture she had always wanted. It's the bedroom of her dreams, one that she knew she would never have.

Death sits on the side of her bed.

"Unfortunately no, I'm not your father."

It's the ethereal quality of his voice that gives away that there is something not human about the man in front of her.

Iris takes a closer look to what he is wearing and notes the depressing all black, tattered, robes. The only thing he was missing from the cliché was a giant scythe to reap her soul with.

"Am I dead then?" she quietly asks.

"I'm afraid so, Iris."

The tears quickly work their way back up on Iris face.

"But you can go back Iris. This doesn't have to be the end of your life here. You haven't even experienced life to its fullest. There's no point in moving on when you are unhappy in your living life."

And Iris can only hesitatingly ask, "Does it get better?"

Death barks out a laugh.

"I cannot guarantee you that life will be all sunshine rainbows from here on, but with the length of your life I will guarantee you that you will find something in life worth living for. It might not be a year from now, it might not be five years from now, but I guarantee you that one day you will find something worth living for Iris."

For a twelve year old, five years was a daunting amount of time.

Seeing Iris' apprehensive look, Death forcefully nudges her along.

"Go to sleep Iris, and when you awake you shall be in the living world."

Death ruffles Iris' hair and with that Death disappears leaving Iris alone with her thoughts in a bedroom straight out of her dreams.

Eventually she falls asleep, and when she awakes she's in the Hospital room with Hermione and Ron fretting over her and Madame Pomfrey starting to shoo everyone out.

And Iris can only wonder, was it just a vivid dream?

* * *

The third time Iris dies is at the end of second year after she kills the basilisk. It is not the killing gaze which finishes Iris; it is the potent basilisk venom that does her in, after she slays the creature with the Sword of Gryffindor.

Again Iris wakes up to find herself in her dreamlike bedroom with luxuries she could never afford and tastefully decorated now with the red and gold of Gryffindor. Before Iris can fully take in the changes the door that wasn't there before opens and a nostalgic man enters her room.

"Dad?" she asks while scrunching her eyebrows.

Death raises an eyebrow at her.

"We need to stop meeting like this Iris." He replies as he makes his way to Iris' bedside.

"Do you know why you're here?" He asks.

Iris deflates at the question and pulls the blanket more around her.

"So this isn't a dream? I'm dead again?"

Death nodded his head in reply.

"I don't need to give you the whole spiel about choice again, do I?"

Iris shakes her head, "No, I think I got the message last time I was here. The choice to move or go back, yeah?"

Iris pauses for a moment.

"But it's just so hard you know!" she exclaims.

"I know you said life is worth living and that I need to experience it, but it's just so hard. The Dursleys don't love me, my schoolmates either hate or idolize me, and my friends don't understand me."

"Especially this year! Everyone was either afraid of me or praising me as the next dark lord and all I wanted was just to be left alone."

"What about your friends?" Death asks.

Iris just shakes her head.

"I love them, but they don't understand. Hermione comes from a loving family so she doesn't relate to what I'm going through and Ron… Ron is caught in the pride and glory seeking. He only sees the highs and doesn't understand the lows."

"Why haven't you tried talking to them?"

At the question Iris withdraws herself more into her blankets.

"I don't know…"

But Death did.

"What's the difference between telling your friends and telling me, someone who is essentially a stranger to you?"

"It's different." Iris murmurs. "They would judge me for it. You though, you don't feel like a stranger. You feel like someone I've known all my life and would accept me no matter what."

A thought appears in Iris' head and she unclenches herself from her blankets and crawls her way to Death's side and grabs onto his robes.

"Hey Dad, you said we can choose. Can you come back with me please?"

It is in this moment that Death's humanity momentarily comes back to him. He stares down at Iris who looks as damaged, vulnerable, and so utterly terrified of rejection as she could be and he hesitates. And it is in that hesitation that he picks Iris up and they leave the bedroom of dreams.

This is the story of Death raising Iris Potter.

* * *

 _"Wait a minute" Harry exclaims. "You mean that's a choice? Can you come back with me and deal with Voldemort and everyone else?"_

 _Death laughs at Harry's request._

 _"To be honest Harry, this happened so very long ago when I was relatively new to this whole Death business. I don't think I would ever do something like that ever again. Besides, no offense but you aren't as cute as Iris."_

 _Death fondly smiles as he reminisces about the past._

 _"Depending on how your future will go, you'll probably end up meeting her at some point."_

 _He reaches for his teacup and he takes another long sip._

 _"But the real reason why I ended up going with her is because she needed guidance in her life. You're already an adult even if you don't feel like it. You understand about making choices and following through with them and the consequences, much like your battle with Voldemort."_

 _"If you had showed up to me ten years ago when you were just starting Hogwarts like Iris did, I would be more inclined to say yes, but you turned out just fine didn't you?"_

 _Harry couldn't help but think dying wasn't exactly 'turning out just fine.'_


	3. 3 - The Girl Who Lived - Training

Iris Potter did not return to Hogwarts for her third year.

Iris and her father are sitting in a quaint café located in the bustling city of New York.

"So…. Dad." She eases out slowly as if tasting foreign words on her mouth. "Why am I not going to Hogwarts this year?"

Death nurses his tea as Iris is fiddling with her treacle tart.

"Do you know the saying that 'some weeks feel like years, while some years feel like weeks'?"

Iris, being only thirteen, shakes her head at the proverb.

"Because to be frank dear, this next year with me will feel like several lifetimes in comparison to what Hogwarts would be teaching you.

Believe it or not, but you are capable of tremendous power that you would have naturally and slowly learned if you hadn't met me. But since I am here, we might as well jumpstart your training."

Death puts on a more somberly expression.

"I can't be with you forever Iris. I don't want to influence your choices more than I already am. So when I leave, I want you to be able to be stand straight with pride and confidence at whatever comes your way. Voldemort is but a small stepping stone in your journey, as it's what comes after him is what your life will be about."

And it's the information that her new father is eventually going to leave her that hits Iris the hardest; that even when her dad is an immortal concept, he cannot be together with her indefinitely.

Death puts his hand on Iris' head and he tells her,

"Family separating is a normal thing Iris. Even if we won't be together forever, I'll still always be looking after you."

Iris wipes away the tears and stares straight at Death's green eyes.

"When do we start?"

* * *

Her dad, Iris thought, was a pretty big asshole.

She was currently in a pyramid, the tomb of some ancient pharaoh, trying to finish the task that her father gave her.

 _"Go to where his crypt is located, and bring back something of magical value." Her dad said._

Arbitrary tasks like this has been regular throughout her training for the last few months, but her dad was not lying when he said she'll feel like she has aged a couple decades. Week after week of non-stop death-defying tasks she was assigned, and tasks after task she succeed and died trying.

The week before this was escaping bounty hunters in the Amazon rainforest.

The week before that was stealing valuables from a natural dragon hoard.

And before that was rescuing personal blood bank slaves from a coven of vampires.

Now, she had to navigate through a curse-filled tomb to rob some ancient pharaoh whose valuables only had marginal worth to her father with only her bare hands.

Did she mention that her dad took her wand away?

 _"Magic is about will and intent. Wizards and witches start with foci because it is through motions and incantations that we hypnotize ourselves and they become triggers for will and intent. They believe that the motions and incantations are the reason the spell works, while it is because they believe that magic actually occurs._

 _Hogwarts teaches point casting and silent casting in your NEWT years, and the process is essentially rewiring your spell triggers from motions and incantations to strictly will and intent._

 _The foci's main functionality though is to not waste excess magic in spells. Everyone is capable of using wandless magic, how else did humans discover their magical ability? But to do so without a focus is heavily inefficient and therefore foci were made._

 _People like us though Iris, we are beings of magic and this inefficiency is but a drop in the ocean for us."_

Iris hit a crossroads in the pyramid and sends out a pulse of magic out like sonar. She notes the feedback in the right path as potential curse wards and takes the left path.

Yeah, the first couple months of living with her dad were slow in comparison to what she was doing now, and she wishes that her dad would let her take it slow again.

The first couple weeks without her wand reminded her a bit of summer vacation, but it was the constant pressure from her dad to perform that made her anxious. She tried and tried to get wandless magic to work but the concept was just too foreign and difficult to wrap her head around. Add on top of that she was essentially traveling the world with her dad and seeing a bunch of exotic sights that she normally wouldn't have anyways. The amazon rainforest, the pyramids, the Grand Canyon… On a second thought maybe her dad was scouting out training grounds. In fact, it was shortly after their touring that Death launched her into training.

 _"I've always been a huge fan of sink or swim. It was always the fear of death that let humans progress in such a fast manner."_

The week he said that he left her in an Albanian forest teeming with werewolves on the night of a full moon. Iris shuddered at the memory, especially with what her father followed up with.

 _"The fact that we can ignore death makes the stakes way too low in your training. Not fearing death is unnatural to humans Iris, and you have yet to shed your humanity. So every time you die during my tutelage I will personally give you my punishment." And it's the first time Iris sees the cold fury in Death's eyes that guaranteed that this was a promise._

She died a lot that night. It was no surprise really, without any access to magic and the athletic ability of a thirteen year old, there really was no escaping a pack of werewolves.

When she died, there was no bedroom of dreams and no father comforting her in all-knowing silence. She was left alone with silence kneeling in a lake with dense fog surrounding her. There was no choice but to get up and return and redo the night.

Iris learned a lot that night, a lot about survival. As much as she would hate to admit it her father was right in that death is a terrific motivator in learning and whilst she never reached the finesse of her dad, she managed to crudely hone her skills.

She learned to develop a sixth sense of sorts with her magic. An acute feeling danger whenever something dangerous was close by.

She learned exactly what her dad meant when he said magic is fueled by will and intent, for she had never in her life willed to run faster when they chased her, to be tougher when the werewolves bit her, and to heal more completely when pieces of her stomach were missing. This dwarfed whatever abuse she got from the Dursleys, but at least she got a more practical lesson in magic from it.

When she finally got died enough from running, Iris learned to fight back. The only crude spell she learned was from the intense feeling of "get the hell away from me" and the ensuing blasts that sent werewolves flying away from her did the trick. She died a lot less after that.

As soon as dawn broke and the werewolves finally retreated her dad was there to collect her, and the last thing she hears when she finally collapses after the stress and adrenaline from the night leaves her is a soothing "Well done darling."

* * *

Iris sleeps with a smile on her lips with no thoughts of the punishment in her mind.

The night with the werewolves taught Iris how to survive against animals.

The week with the bounty hunters taught Iris how to survive against humans.

The time with the dragons taught her stealth and mobility.

The operation against the vampires taught Iris how to fight.

The job with this pyramid teaches Iris how to deal with curses, wards, and runes.

And they each do a hell of a job teaching, as death is a constant reinforcement of what works and what doesn't.

Iris quickly learns how to sense magical traps. She learns how to differentiate them, and she learns how to dismantle them. At first she tried to simply overload them with magic, but that only worked for the simple wards and prematurely detonated the more complicated ones. She learned to use magic to analyze the structure of the wards, and then to use will and intent to dismantle them. The ensuing deaths reminded Iris that simply dismantling a ward blindly is the same as triggering them, and she was forced to learn through trial and error.

Iris dies a lot, but she also learns so much more. She can differentiate between runes now; understands how they are connected and the way basic structures build into each other. It is through this understanding that she deftly dismantles the traps she finds because it is the wealth of experience she accumulates through trial and errors that carries her.

This tomb has the reputation of being the most difficult crypt to breach because of the sheer quality and quantity of curses that litter the corridors, and it is here that Iris learns to become a premier cursebreaker.

And when Iris finally reaches the room where all the treasure lies, she only grabs a ring that pings her magical sense the highest, even though the magic it sends off is absolutely vile. She grimaces as she grabs it and quickly teleports out to where her father is waiting for her and he is holding a locket that has the same vile feeling.

* * *

Iris hands her dad the ring.

"What is this disgusting thing?" she asks.

Death grimaces in distaste.

"It contains a soul. Men do awful things in pursuit of immortality and one of the ways they thought that they could avoid death was to put their soul in a separate container in the hopes that even if their body dies, then their soul can live on.

It works, but the cost is that your body loses the essence of what it is. It becomes nothing more than a ghoul, a zombie, a relic what it once was.

The soul becomes anchored to what it's attached to and the body eventually degrades and cannot venture out further than the proximity of the object. They avoid death, but in return their body eventually fades away into nothingness.

With no body to control, they are simply a trapped soul living eternally in an unmoving object.

Until they can try to possess another body at least."

Death takes the ring in one hand and pinches it with the other. He pulls away and a silky, discoloured orb is pulled out and he releases it into the air. The orb travels higher into the sky until it eventually fades away from sight.

Iris glares at the fading orb before she redirects her attention back to her father.

"Wait, then why didn't it try to possess me then?"

Death lets out a barking laugh.

"No soul would try to possess a vessel of death. They have better self-preservation than that."

He raises the locket he was holding and does the same thing, but instead of a slightly discoloured silky orb, a sludgy black mess comes out and he squishes it between his fingers.

"They thought they could improve it. Instead of completely separating their soul from their body humans tried to only put a piece of their soul away.

A soul is not meant to be torn to pieces. They represent what you are, and to tear it to pieces essentially strips your mind down as well. In a way that separating your entire soul from your body effectively removes your self from yourself, tearing a piece of your soul apart effectively rips some of your mind away."

He looks down at the remains of the sludge between his fingers.

"We call this a horcrux and this one belonged to Voldemort."

Alarmed, Iris looks at the locket with renewed interest.

"He made one of those horcrux thingys?"

"Several, in fact."

The distaste on his face becomes even more apparent.

"I would not usually help you in a matter that should be done personally, especially against Voldemort, but any attempt at immortality is a personal offense to me that I need to deal with."

Death puts a hand on Iris' shoulder and before they leave to their next destination Death mumbles a line that Iris faintly hears.

"Now that I mention it, I still need to visit Flamel…"

* * *

It is not often that Iris and her father sleep together.

With Iris completing suicide tasks for her training and Death going around doing who knows what, such opportunities are few and far in between.

But when they do happen, Iris and Death sleep together.

Iris wishes for it because she craves the familiar warmth that was denied to her, and Death allows it to indulge Iris in her wants.

It is in these circumstances that their more intimate bonding moment happens.

"Hey, dad?" Iris asks.

A gentle tap is what she receives in reply.

"Why didn't Sirius come for me?"

It's a question that haunts Iris. She learned that Sirius is her innocent godfather from her now adoptive father, and she read from the newspaper that he has escaped Azkaban, but the knowledge that cuts deep is that instead of searching for his goddaughter Sirius has instead been seen trying to breach Gryffindor's dormitory.

"People change." He replies.

"War changes people, and if the war didn't, then Azkaban surely did."

She learned of Azkaban and the Dementors, but knowledge doesn't necessarily mean experience.

"Dementors leeches off the happiness of other people, and it is the people that most strongly feel happiness that are most affected. The effect is amplified when they also experienced great sorrow. I know you can't imagine what Sirius has felt, but he lost his best friends and got betrayed by another and condemned to a life surrounded by his worst feelings. The only thing that keeps him focused is that he knows he's innocent and the man responsible for it is still out there.

In order to keep his sanity, his mission is the only thing that drives him."

He caresses Iris' hair as she moves closer.

"In another life, in another time, you would have been as close as you and I. And that possibility isn't entirely gone, because when his purpose is finally over he'll have to find another purpose to keep on living."

Iris shakes her head.

"But I already have you."

* * *

Iris asks her dad if he's going to continue her Hogwarts tuition.

The sneer of contempt in his face is enough of an answer.

"Pretty much anything they could you is completely irrelevant compared to practical experience."

While Iris could agree with that, what her dad was teaching her could essentially boil down to, one, survive, and two, if it isn't working, throw more magic at it.

"But that's the benefit that beings like us can enjoy. Our magic makes us capable of doing anything, and it is only experience that limits us two.

Take for example Gamp's Law of Transfiguration; one of the principles is that you cannot conjure food from nothing. While normally true for traditional wizards and witches, it means nothing to us who can simply throw enough magic to rewrite reality.

You'd be learning a bunch of theories and applications that are only applicable to the common population, and you are anything but common Iris."

Iris couldn't imagine overwriting reality with her will yet, but she has seen at least that extent of power from her father.

"But what about the other subjects that you can't just brute force with magic?"

"Astronomy? Contrary to wizarding belief the alignment of stars doesn't actually affect magic. Divination? Iris, I'm sorry to say that you don't have the sage's eye. Care of magical creatures? What creature are you trying to tame anyways when you have Hedwig? Arithmancy? Useless to you. You already defy traditional laws, you don't have to understand every single law you're actively defying. Ancient Runes? Do I have to throw you into another pyramid? Muggle studies?"

At the mention, Death just bends over howling in laughter.

"Wizarding society still hasn't believed atomic weaponry has been developed and they still call firearms 'metal wands'. Muggleborn students leave the course feeling more confused about their culture than when they first entered."

Iris didn't dare mention Potions.

Death then starts to consider it.

"Hm, that does remind me that we haven't started on your potion learning yet.

I need to catch up with an old debt anyways."

* * *

 _It is sometime during the summer vacation after the second year of Hogwarts that someone rings the bell on Hermione Granger's house. Her parents are not home during this time, so Hermione herself checks who is at the door and she finds…_

" _Iris!" Hermione slams the door open and flings herself onto Iris in an overbearing hug._

" _Hermione!" Iris squeaks out in surprise._

" _Where were you? Where'd you go? What the heck have you been up to?" Hermione bombards Iris with concerns as she frets over her._

" _You're worse than Molly…" she mumbles. Iris slowly returns the embrace, "I missed you too Hermione."_

 _Hermione finally releases Iris from her hug and smiles fondly at her. "So, where have you been?"_

" _Oh you know… just around."_

 _Hermione glares at Iris and pinches her not so subtly._

" _Iris, the last time we saw you, you were going down into the Chamber of Secrets and we haven't seen you since then. When we managed to finally get into contact with Dumbledore he went down only to come back up with Ginny Weasely and merely said that you weren't down there. He didn't say what he found in the Chamber of Secrets but he had to address everyone that Iris Potter has gone missing. So don't tell me that you were merely 'just around' when the entirety of magical Britain is going crazy over your disappearance!"_

 _Iris winces at the thought of a country-wide manhunt for her._

" _Um, well. There's nothing much to say really. I went into the Chamber of Secrets, fought a Basilisk, saved Ginny from certain death, and magically teleported myself away to someplace safe for a couple months."_

 _Hermione pinches the bridge of her nose in frustration._

" _You can't tell me a story like that with the majority of it sounding like footnotes. What are you doing here anyways?"_

 _Iris tenses her face and looks downwards. She starts to grip the length of her robes as she murmurs out,_

" _Hermione I'm not coming back to Hogwarts."_

" _WHAT WHY?"_

" _I, uh, when I magically teleported myself away I accidently found a long lost relative?"_

 _Iris motions to across the street to a park where a man was sitting on a bench without a care in the world. Upon seeing the girls look back at him, he waves._

" _And he said that we're going traveling for a while and that he's giving me time to get my affairs in order."_

 _Hermione pinches the bridge of her nose again._

" _This is why you don't abridge your stories Iris I have so many questions right now. You know this is really sketchy and sounds like a kidnapping right?"_

 _Iris' eyes widen and she starts to wave her hands in denial._

" _No, no, no, no. We got the blood checked and everything. It's all certified by the goblins."_

 _Hermione raises an eyebrow and asks the unasked question._

" _Ok, we didn't really. But he said that if anyone starts to object to our blood relation that's what he said I should say. We didn't actually go to the goblins because he said the goblins start to get antsy whenever he's around. I swear though, he's the real thing."_

" _Uh huh, did he also offer you candy in an unmarked van?"_

 _Iris grumbles petulantly, "I am not a child."_

" _You know what, come with me and talk to him. Molly was instantly convinced when she started to talk to him for some reason."_

 _Iris starts to drag Hermione across the street._

" _Wait what do you mean about Ron's mom?"_

" _Oh, I said goodbye to Ron before coming to visit you. She was giving me the same spiel you were giving me. Something about 'following sketchy people' and 'trusting unconditionally' and 'you're honestly walking into a kidnapping' I honestly tuned most of it out."_

 _They arrived in front of the man and Iris calls out,_

" _Hey Dad, this is my friend Hermione. She's being as skeptical as Molly was."_

 _Hermione finally gets a good look at the man and she sees him dressed in a non-descript jean and sweater with unkempt raven-like hair and eyes as vividly green as Iris'. She also found herself blushing as she stared into his eyes as if they were looking into her most personal feelings._

" _Well hello there Hermione, you can call me… Harry Evans."_

 _It's the ethereal quality of his voice that makes the blush more prominent._

" _I, uh, er, uh, um, hi."_

 _Smooth, Hermione._

 _Despite all the previous warnings Hermione was giving Iris, Hermione honestly couldn't have asked for someone better to be her kidnapper. She would have gladly leapt at this chance._

 _And as if sensing that there would be no more convincing needed, Harry smiles,_

" _It was a pleasure to meet you too Hermione."_

 _Seeing the reaction Hermione was having on her adoptive father, Iris could only scowl at him and dragged Hermione back to her house._

" _What is wrong with you?" Iris demands._

" _Oh I, uh, I don't know what that was." Hermione stammers out with glazed eyes._

 _An uncomfortable silence washes over them._

" _Do you think he'll take me along as well?" Hermione quietly asks._

 _This time it was Iris' turn to facepalm._


	4. 4 - The Girl Who Lived - Flamel

Contrary to popular belief, Nicholas Flamel is not a sagely old man living in the mountains isolated from civilization just so he can toil away at his alchemic studies with his wife Perenelle.

No, Nicholas Flamel lives in a rural French city in a non-descript muggle house in a muggle neighbourhood beside muggle neighbours who do not even realize a house exists right beside them.

It's in this house that Nicholas spends the majority of his time studying his alchemic profession trying to make more academic advances when a knock on the door catches his ear.

Nicholas pauses his research and takes a moment to catch himself. If people needed to contact him there were many channels to do so: owls from trusted sources, his personal mailbox located in a separate workplace, or hunting down Perenelle and having her pass on the message for a personal meeting. The last time someone managed to find out where he lived and knock on the door of his residence was over two hundred years ago when he still lived in a cabin in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere, and they were just travelers wondering if they could stay the night.

Point being, nobody really knocked on his door anymore.

So when Nicholas opened the door and found a red-haired girl dressed in scuffed traveler's robes he had to check that he still was not living in the 17th century.

"Salut?"

"Uh, hi Mr. Flamel" and he notes the faint British accent.

"How can I help you Miss?"

She looks at him nervously and then a minor crease of tension is seen as she tightens her eyes.

"It's Iris Potter." And she pauses, whilst Nicholas's eyebrows rise up in recognition to the name.

"Ah, the Girl-Who-Lived."

"More like the Girl-Who-Doesn't-Stay-Dead" he hears her mumble under her breath.

"Well what can I do for you Miss Potter?"

Nicholas notes how Iris scrunches into herself even more and how her head lowers towards her feet.

"I came to apologize about breaking your Philosopher's stone." He hears her say in a quiet voice.

He chuckles in a grandfatherly way.

"Don't worry about that Miss Potter."

Also contrary to what the few in the know thought they knew, Nicholas did not give Albus the actual Philosopher's stone during Iris's first year as bait. Even if he did, the Philosopher's stone is indestructible due to the nature that it was made so Albus would not have been able to destroy it. But nobody really knew much about the Stone in the first place, mainly because he was the only person to have it in possession. So when he demonstrated that he could turn metals into gold, and he was well over the age of three hundred years old, people believed that the Stone was genuine and nobody questioned the authenticity.

This also meant that the attempts for the Stone were numerous as well as the attempts on his and his wife's life. Nicholas figured that by having Dumbledore leak that he destroyed the Stone this would give him a hundred years or so of relative peace before people became suspicious again and he'll have to come up with a different excuse.

Iris looked up to Nicholas with wide eyes.

"No really, I feel awful about it. I mean, I never did send a letter because it didn't feel sincere enough but Dumbledore did say you were okay with it.

But since my Dad told me since we were going to be here for a while I thought I should apologize since I was going to be around here much more often."

Nicholas starts to look at Iris more closely at the mention of 'being around more often' and her 'Dad.' Someone he heard was very much dead.

"Where… is your Dad?"

"Oh! He said he was going to collect some favours so he pointed to me where you lived and told me to have fun. Said something about you having a heart attack if he showed up for no reason. He also told me to give you this too."

Iris reaches into her pockets and takes out a bright, red, rock.

"This doubles as my apology by the way."

Nicholas pales considerably and with trembling hands takes the rock from her.

"Where did you get this?" he asks in a mute, quiet voice.

"My Dad made it." Iris says oblivious to the terror she just inflicted onto Nicholas.

In his hand is an identical Philosopher's stone to the one he has hidden away in the basement.

For the greatest secret that Nicholas Flamel held was that he did not create the Philosopher's Stone and neither did his wife.

Nicholas received the Philosopher's stone from Death himself.

* * *

Nicholas led Iris into her house and served her tea and refreshments.

"What exactly are you here for Iris." And Iris could hear the shift in his tone.

"So uh, my Dad has been training me the last few months, and I brought up my Hogwarts education and my Dad decidedly said that he couldn't teach me potions so he brought me here.

He never explicitly told me 'Hey Iris, go get Flamel to teach you potions' but I think it was heavily implied. He also said I should 'socialize with my peers more because being isolated socially is not good for a young girl in her formative years' but I'm not sure if that means I should socialize with you or form my own gang in France or something."

"You do realize that I'm six hundred years older than you though?"

"Yeah but to be honest I think my Dad has trouble differentiating between years and eons. I think he figures that since we're both alive that's good enough."

Nicholas mutters some choice words under his breath.

"Well, I consider myself more an alchemist but I'm more than knowledgeable enough to teach third-year potions.

We'll get started tomorrow I'll have to prepare some materials and ingredients."

Nicholas lets the conversation sit there, but Iris makes no motion to move.

"Do you have any place to stay Iris?"

"Not really. My Dad kind of just drops me off in a location and picks me up whenever I finish. I don't really know what constitutes as 'finished' in this case."

"And you don't have any way to contact him?"

Iris momentarily thinks about killing herself because maybe her Dad is in another realm just waiting while she finishes.

"Kind… of? Not really in a way that I want to test."

"Better get you a room sorted too then."

* * *

The lessons with Nicholas were efficient, as is the benefit of having one-on-one tutelage, but even having the famed immortal alchemist teaching the subject could get Iris to overcome her distaste for the topic. So after eight hours of potion every day, Iris spent her remaining time badgering Nicholas and Perenelle, who preferred to be nicknamed Penny.

"So what exactly does the Philosopher's Stone do?"

Nicholas glances up from his sheets of paper that he's working on and sees Iris just mindlessly twirling her hands as she is magically juggling a few orbs of light around her.

He moves back to his work as he tries to formulate the words.

"What I tell everybody about the Stone is that it transmutes certain metals to gold and that it is a key component to the Elixir of Life.

The truth of the matter is that the Stone is essentially the greatest alchemy shortcut there is. By using it in an alchemic reaction it can substitute as any number of reagents and transmute one substance to another. The most useful use has definitely been to soak the Stone in pure distilled water to get the Elixir of Life. The most confusing thing about the process is that the water goes through multiple mutations as the Stone soaks in it so I don't know what to add and where. My study of alchemy is trying to reverse engineer the transmutations and figure out what the reagents are.

The Philosopher's Stone is the answer key to a textbook but they don't show you the steps on how to get to the final answer."

"But I thought you made your own Stone."

Nicholas glances back up and sees that Iris has upgraded from juggling just a few orbs to a dozen.

"Iris, your father gave me the Stone in the first place."

"How did you manage that anyways? He's always going on about the folly of immortality and that any attempt at it is a personal insult to him. To be honest I'm surprised that you're still alive."

Nicholas sighs and sets down his pen as he rubs his forehead.

"I entered a contract with your Dad so to speak. I'd rather not get into the particulars of the contract itself but in essence Penny and I are indentured servants to him until our deaths. A clause in the contract states that any revealing about the process of the Elixir of Life to non-immortal beings is grounds for him to kill us."

Iris stopped her juggling and froze the orbs in midair.

"Wait so he actually comes by and tells you to do stuff?"

Nicholas grimaces.

"Not exactly. The last time I saw him was five hundred years ago and that was during the ceremony. Someone like him doesn't exactly have a solid concept of time."

"You have all the benefits of being his servant without having to do any of the work?"

Nicholas sighs.

"Currently, yes. But as I said five hundred years is nothing in his sense of time. Teaching you is the closest thing to a task I've been indirectly told to do ever since being in his employ."

"Huh, you don't say."

Iris goes back to magically juggling a few dozen magical orbs.

* * *

It's a month before Iris starts to crack under the monotony.

The break is greatly appreciated in comparison to what she was doing before.

Fighting dragons, spelunking ancient ruins, fighting evil vampires.

But studying potions and alchemy in comparison to that is just so… dull. Sure her life is not in any danger anymore (not like it ever was) but the lack of action is causing her to develop pseudo-withdrawal symptoms.

That's why when after the day's lesson is over and she heads to her room and finds a black envelope lying on her bed she squeals with delight and grabs Hedwig and starts to run out of the house.

As she is running she yells out to Nicholas and Perenelle, "Bye Nick, bye Penny my Dad is said we're going out for a while!"

And she hears from Penny, "Bye honey, have fun." As she exits the house.

Iris runs down the street and sees her Dad waiting for her and she leaps into a hug.

"Hey Iris."

The only reply he receives is the muffled voice in his chest.

He pats her head and only reassures her, "Missed you too."

They stay like that for moments as they bask in the presence of each other and eventually Iris separates from him.

"I figured a month with Flamel would probably be enough Potions education you'd need for a while."

Iris grumbles in agreement.

"So I figured we'd start back up on training."

He glances down at Iris and then a feral grin appears on his face.

"I think we'll go kill a Dark Lord."

Iris's eyes widen but before she could say anything Death latches onto her shoulder and they disappear.

* * *

 _Hogwarts continues as usual without Iris. Except for the Dementors, who are obviously the most un-Hogwarts element at Hogwarts._

 _There was the initial shock of surprise and drama when everyone found out that the Girl-Who-Lived has gone missing at the end of second year, but Dumbledore had assured everyone that Iris had been rescued and is alive but because of circumstances she would be absent for the remainder of the year._

 _Then the next year rolled around and Iris had not returned and the rumours started up again._

 _"The Dark Lord's followers got her."_

 _"Sirius Black got her."_

 _"She got so terrified she decided to off herself."_

 _"She tried to take her place as the Heir of Slytherin but someone got offended and killed her."_

 _Funnily enough, most of the rumours involved ended with Iris dying. They were somewhat true._

 _The rumour with Sirius Black ended when reports of him were being spotted around the Gryffindor dorms trying to break in. Everyone chalked it up to him not knowing that Iris has gone missing._

 _Of course the Weasleys and Hermione knew that Iris was being cared for, but when Dumbledore tried to get more information nothing clear came out of it._

 _"She's being taken cared for Albus, why does it matter?" Molly said._

 _"She's going traveling." Hermione told Dumbledore when asked._

 _"I'm pretty sure she's fine wherever she is." Ron informed._

 _All attempts were just rehashes of the same answers._

 _The only consolation that Dumbledore had was that the magical instruments that monitored the current status of Iris (which only had two settings: Alive and Dead) were usually on the Alive setting (they did momentarily dip towards Dead on several occasion which worried him to no end)._

 _And one day when Dumbledore went back into his office there was a non-descript black envelope on his desk that said one thing._

 _"She'll be back for her fourth year."_


	5. 5 - The Girl Who Lived - Dark Lords

Iris and her father are currently in the middle of the jungle sitting in their campsite.

Death is in his familiar setting of drinking tea on a wooden table that he constructed through sheer force of magic and is reading a newspaper as if it was just another Tuesday evening.

Iris meanwhile sits across from him nursing a treacle tart and is just wondering "What is her life?" right now.

"Dad?"

Death makes a vague motion that resembles acknowledgement.

"I thought you said we were going to hunt Voldemort."

Silence lingers in the air at the statement that sounds like a question.

"Believe it or not Voldemort is not the only Dark Lord around the world."

He turns a page.

"There's a Dark Lord in Mexico who started his own mafia built upon the distribution of drugs and magical substances. The Americans are dealing with the rise of a new cult but because they are so entrenched into the economy they are having difficulties removing them without feeling the repercussions. The South Korean President is currently a puppet placed into power by another Dark Lord and Russia has already been taken over and he's setting his sight on waging war with America."

A pause is needed while he takes another sip from his tea, and to give Iris a reprieve of the current geopolitical setting of the world.

"Every country has its own problems you'll soon realize. Britain likes to feel like they are the center of the world, especially with the rise of Grindelwald and Voldemort, but when you start to see the state of affairs of the world as whole, Britain affairs will feel like a dime a dozen."

Wasn't that the thing though? Iris thought. She was raised to believe that the matter with Voldemort was the meaning of her life so far, as Voldemort has had a hand in shaping her upbringing.

Orphaned as a baby because of a prophecy and as a result was cared terribly by the Dursleys.

First year of Hogwarts was thwarting his resurrection by preventing Quirrell get the Philosopher's Stone.

Second year was preventing the Horcrux from fully assimilating with Ginny and obtaining a new host.

After meeting the primordial entity that is her father, Iris starts to believe that coincidence probably does not exist and maybe something called Fate is probably real.

" _Her?" the sheer disdain in his voice was obvious. "Yeah she's a thing but she doesn't work exactly how you would think."_

Okay, scratch that she knows that Fate exists and if twice is a pattern then she'll probably have to deal with Voldemort in some obscure way every year while she attends Hogwarts.

"In the grand scheme of worldwide scale, Voldemort is just one piece on the board game that is life. That's not to say he isn't important, especially for us."

Death tosses the newspaper behind him and she watches as it seemingly fades from existence before it hits the ground.

"Voldemort is an especially sore spot for us. He is the arch villain to the origin story of the Girl-Who-Lived, who shall then be known as the Girl-Who-Conquered."

Iris shudders at the more hyphenated names. The last thing she needed were more titles she didn't want.

Death grimaced as well.

"I was never a fan of those names either."

"But nonetheless, confronting him will be a defining moment of your life. That is why I won't be dealing with him personally."

Iris nods at the reasoning, even if she is conflicted about it.

"What about all those other Dark Lords roaming around?"

"Not my problem."

Looking up from her treacle tart, she sends a look at Death that is not exactly criticizing, but just wonders, 'Why?'

Death sighs and moves closer to Iris to wrap an arm around her.

"I can't solve the world's problems Iris. It's not my place, not anymore. This world is more yours than it is mine's, and the only thing that I'm doing is showing you the way and the paths that you can take.

Remember that what I value most in this world is the ability of choice."

Iris nestles closer to Death.

"Dark Lords… are a societal problem. You can't just kill one and expect sunshine and rainbows after. Dark Lords happen because there are people discontent with the system they're in and they rise to power because they rally all the people that are discontent.

One country's terrorist is another's revolutionary, after all."

She's confused by this statement and replies, "That doesn't mean we shouldn't stop them though. If we let them be then they'll cause suffering as well." which she understands intimately because she was a victim to a 'revolutionary.'

Death shakes his head with a fond smile.

"Of course you can eliminate them if you feel like they are more trouble than they are worth, but remember Iris Dark Lords are a symptom and not the cause. The unfortunate thing about Dark Lords is that they are cyclical; civilizations rise and fall, economies boom then bust, and Dark Lords pursue change then become corrupt and fail.

No king rules forever.

So even when you kill Voldemort, if you eliminated the drug cartels in Mexico, if you topple the American cult, the cause has not been solved and instead it just festers, then fifty, or a hundred years down the line another Dark Lord will rise."

And Iris sees the worn look on Death as if what he says is finality, as if he has seen this process himself, as if he himself has already tried to save the world and failed miserably at it, as if it is his deepest regret that he could not save the world. It is the closest Iris sees her Dad admit defeat, and it pains her to see this expression.

So she gets up from his side and she stares right into his old, weary, green eyes, and she declares firmly for him.

"I'll show you Dad, I'll show you that it's possible. I'll show you a world where Dark Lords won't exist. I'll show you a world where fights don't happen.

I'll show you that utopia isn't a dream."

* * *

" _Okay but really, why are we in a jungle?"_

 _Death gives Iris a slight smirk._

" _Although I did give that spiel about Dark Lords, there's this one in Uganda who is conscripting child soldiers. It's your choice in how you want to deal with him."_

 _Iris closes her eyes and lets out a breath. After a moment she reopens them and with renewed vigour declares to her father, "I'll do it" and leaves the camp._

 _Death's smirk becomes laughter when Iris returns not five minutes after she leaves when she realizes that she has no idea where the Dark Lord is._

* * *

The problem with hunting high priority targets, Dark Lords in particular, is that they very rarely ever want to be found, a fact that currently has Iris irritated.

" _Tasks like these are ninety percent investigation, nine percent waiting, and a moment of action." Death told her._

It's the investigation that kills her, because she has never had to track and hunt a target. Every other task that Death had told her to do, she was transported to the exact location of where to go.

He transported her to the entrance of the vampire covenant, left her stranded in a werewolf infested settlement, locked her in a cursed pyramid, and so forth.

Her missions were simply reduced to her Dad pointing in a direction and telling her, "Try not to die."

Iris sits down at the wooden table in the camp while Death is watching her with an amused expression.

She knows that Death is bullshitting her about the investigation, because she has never seen Death do anything that resembles it. If there was something that he wanted, he simply had it within the next half hour. When Death wanted one of Voldemort's Horcrux, the next thing she knew they were robbing Gringott's bank and taking one from a vault. Where was the investigation in that?

Iris grumbles and takes a look at her map.

The first day of investigation was spent mindlessly wandering the jungle hoping to run into patrols so she could beat the information out of them. She returned empty handed that day.

The second day she realized that she could send Hedwig out and hopefully she would return with a better overview of what the situation with the jungle is like currently. Hedwig succeeded in supplying Iris with a map of the jungle, but there were no significant landmarks that said "DARK LORD HERE."

The next few days were just as productive as the first two; not much progress made.

So here she sits a week into her task making little progress and her Dad sitting at the wooden table drinking away at his tea while he watches her agonize over her work.

Iris glares at her Dad with all the hatred a fourteen year old can muster.

"Why are you still here anyways?"

Death raises an eyebrow at the question.

"Oh? I didn't realize that you hated me that much."

Iris shakes her head into her map.

"It's just that you usually leave me alone when I'm doing one of your missions. Like, I'm happy that you're here so I don't have to sleep alone in this god forsaken jungle, but don't you usually have something to do?"

"I merely have no pressing issues that need to be attended to for the next… long time actually."

"Then that means you can help me with this?" Iris asks while pointing at her map.

"I could," Death says while rubbing his chin. "But the lessons that we learn through experience is what sticks, and I'd hate to stunt your growth."

Iris scowls. "But I'm not making ANY progress. We've been here for a week already and the only thing I've figured out is that this god damned jungle is stupid and everything looks the same!"

Death ponders for a minute before he gives in to Iris's demand.

"Well you should start by getting more information from the villages."

"There's villages around here?!" Iris shrieks, slamming her hands onto the table and spilling the tea everywhere.

* * *

It takes another month before Iris tracks down where the Dark Lord is located. When she does, she charges in with the subtlety of a bomb and starts flinging her magic at the Dark Lord and everything around him.

And it's in the burning aftermath of his base of operations that Death finds a tear-stricken Iris kneeling over the corpse of a child, in the sea of many.

"I tried to save them…" he hears Iris choke out. "But he kept sacrificing more and more of them. They just kept throwing themselves at me and I just didn't know what to do."

Death picks her up and carries her in a bridal carry, pressing her head close to his chest.

"I killed myself to get do overs." She rambles. "I tried so many times. But I just couldn't do it right. Every time I think I got him he just pulled a new trick out or just sacrificed another soldier."

He pats her head consolingly.

"I tried to bring them back Dad. I mended their wounds, gave life to their bodies, but they weren't _alive_ Dad. Why weren't they _**ALIVE**_?"

"Because their souls moved on. For even when they are given a second chance at life, they decided that taking their chance at a new one was better than returning here."

Iris grips into Death's chest harder.

"Sometimes Iris, you just can't save everyone, sometimes people just can't be saved, and sometimes people just don't want to be saved."

"But is it wrong to want to save them, to want to save everyone?"

"No, it's not." Death reassures her. "You just have to realize that no one is perfect, and even if we wish for the best to happen, life doesn't always work out that way.

You killed a Dark Lord, and through that you saved many more lives, especially the lives of the children and people in the nearby villages."

"Didn't you say that more Dark Lords will just rise up from his ashes anyway?"

Death sighs.

"Yes. In the future more Dark Lords will appear. It's inevitable."

"Then does it even matter what happened here?"

"In the long run no," Death sadly says. "But do you think that leaving him alive would have been the better option? That letting him kidnap more children into his army is the better option of the two?"

"They'd still be alive."

"They would, but I can't say what they had was _living_ though.

Take it from someone who has seen the past, present, future, and everything after.

These innocent souls may have died today, although you might not have saved them physically, they have been saved spiritually and they will be grateful that you tried when no one else would."

Iris looks out into the sea of fire that she wrought, with the piled corpses and burning ruins, and she is not sure if what she has done could count as salvation.

When Death takes her away from here, something died in Iris that day. But it also reaffirmed her conviction that day, which until she leaves; she'll show him that utopia exists.

* * *

Death does not take Iris out Dark Lords after that.

Even then, Iris does not let up on her training and in fact ramps up her own initiative. She wanders the globe taking the reins on where they are going. She goes from one magical community to the next mundane one picking up any information on local troubles.

Another revolutionary, some stray vampires, a warlock summoning a demon, a human trafficking operation, and the list goes on and Iris deals with them all.

Death does not handle Iris's training anymore because Iris has decided that this is her training now.

It's in one of these villages that Death is currently waiting at, in an antiquated Inn, in their bar, while he waits for Iris to return from her latest heroic escapade, because he has no pressing matters to attend to and has not had any for the last half year. So he reads the latest news that he already knows, drinks his tea that never empties, and leisurely has a checkers board that he plays against himself.

Then Iris barges through the door with her bright red hair and larger than life presence. She scans the room with tired eyes before she spots her father and marches towards his table and collapsing on the surface.

Eternally amused at her antics, Death returns to his game of checkers.

"So what were you dealing with this time?"

"Vampires." Iris mumbles as she blindly reaches for a cup of water.

"Another, hm? And what did these poor vampires do this time?"

Iris pushes herself up before slouching back in her seat as she slowly glances at the checkers game her Dad is playing.

"More blood bank slaves."

Death takes an exaggerated look around the Inn to say, 'Where?'

"I left them with whatever the local law enforcement is here. Some of the slaves were locals while others look like travelers that got unlucky. I didn't know what to do with them so I hoped the police or whatever they are could deal with it."

Death plays a few moves and motions with his eyes for Iris to continue.

"Whatever ends up happening to them now is better than being treated as cattle." Iris defends herself. "And this is like the eighth vampire headed slave ring I've attacked this month! I'm pretty sure there's some sort of vampire mafia going around this country or something."

Death nods his head. "Sixth actually, and yes, there is something akin to a vampire mafia in this country. After the civil war there's a power vacuum and a subgroup of vampires saw this as an opportunity and are trying to install themselves as the power behind the government."

Iris groans and slams her head back onto the table. "So now I have to try and overthrow a conspiracy. Why is this hero business so damn exhausting? Couldn't I just be a regular fourteen year old witch and just go to Hogwarts?"

Death chuckles, "It rarely ever slows down, though Heroes do tend to have more breaks than you do.

Rumours are spreading you know? About some 'upstart red haired kid' that's going around ruining their operations. I expect that the vampires are starting to get antsy and want you gone from the country."

"That does explain quite a bit." Iris replies. "The police weren't even surprised this time and merely just shook their head as if they had a lot more paperwork to deal with. Some of the slaves looked at me with sparkles in their eyes and called me the 'Red Haired Angel'" Iris pauses to let her scowl more apparent. "And the vampires were definitely a lot better equipped this time too."

"Work hard Iris."

Still lying on the table, Iris turns her head and glares at the checkers board.

"What's with the checkers anyways? Isn't the stereotype that you play chess?"

"I'm not exactly sure where that stereotype came from." He says. "I've personally never been a fan of chess. Checkers though? A change of pace I supposed." Another few moves are played.

"I never understood why chess was the hallmark of intelligence." He continues. "If you are chasing for depth I do suppose Go is better," another clack on the board, "And if you want variation then the sheer number of possible permutations of a deck of cards guarantees that no game will play the exact same."

Iris takes a closer look at the checkers board and she notes that no regular pieces are left and there are only kings.

"I adore checkers for its simplicity. You only go forward and it's only when you reach the end of the board that you get to look back at all the options that are now available to you."

He motions towards the board.

"Though I do suppose when you reach this end state the game becomes more complicated and you're succumbed to paralysis of choice."

"Is that an allusion to my life?" Iris asks with scowling eyes.

"Everything is an allusion to life if you look hard enough.

Chinese checkers is about making use of your allies and enemies to reach your end goal quicker.

Jenga is about building your life while only reusing the pieces that are given to you. There's no winning condition, only that we continue to build upwards.

Poker is making do with what we have to surmount and bluff our way through challenges.

The list goes on and on."

Iris stares at the checkers board again, and even after several minutes Death makes no additional moves to the board. Reaching out she makes the pieces disappear and replaces them with brand new chess pieces in the proper starting position.

"So what I'm taking from all this is that if I beat you in chess I'm winning at life?" She says with a glint in her eye.

"Just because I said I don't play chess doesn't mean I'm bad at it." Death replies.

They play a few rounds which ends in Iris losing 0-4 and her throwing the board away in a fit of rage.


End file.
